Physician-Assessed Drug Importance Not Tied to Patient Adherence

About 20% of drugs considered important not taken correctly by patients

(HealthDay News) — Physician-assessed drug importance is not associated with patient-reported drug adherence, according to a study published in the September/October issue of the Annals of Family Medicine.

Stéphanie Sidorkiewicz, M.D., from Paris Descartes University, and colleagues recruited patients receiving at least one long-term drug treatment from hospital and ambulatory settings. They compared patient-reported drug adherence with drug importance, as assessed by physicians. Data were included for 128 patients who were taking 498 drugs.

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The researchers observed only weak agreement among patients and physicians in their assessments of drug adherence and drug importance. There was no correlation between physician-assessed drug importance and patient-reported drug adherence (r = −0.04). Overall, 18.9 percent of the drugs that were considered important by physicians were not taken correctly by patients. There was intentional nonadherence by patients to 48.1 percent of the drugs for which they reported reasons for nonadherence.

"Nearly 20 percent of drugs considered important by physicians were not correctly taken by patients," the authors write. "These findings highlight the need for better patient-physician collaboration in drug treatment."